Rome?

[Bootsiuv]

Without a doubt the main factor that made them so great was simply their ability to adapt. Almost everything the Romans used was someone elses idea. But it was the Romans that perfected everything. They improved the aquaduct and made them huge. They had the largest ports because they engineered a waterproof concrete. They were the only ones to make the first true highways. They werent afraid of seeing a good idea and deciding to use it. Before Rome Italy was full of all different Italian races, and basically they came together to form the Romans. And by this logic we are wrong to call the inhabitants of Italy Italian. Sure there used to be Italians but in my opinion it would seem more logical to call them all Romans. To me it seems like all the efforts of the ancestors of the Italian lands go to waste if they start calling themselvs Italian again. They should be called Roman like they truly are, after all they made the effort to combine everyone to become united. Anyway, Rome started as simply a village full of bandits and runaway slaves, all different Italians. So they didnt feel the need to stick to any particular form of anything, but instead to take anything that was better than theirs and take it further. This included everything from buildings to military weapons and formations. So it is clear then why they became so great, and why luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The first sentence is quite true....the rest

Your saying Italy was full of "italians" but to my knowledge, it was the greeks who gave Italy it's ancient name of Italia/Italica (depending on the source), which in the beginning was only really the area centered around Rhegion. The ancient inhabitants called the entire peninsula something else, which has been lost to us AFAIK.

Italy was not full of italians....it was full of estruscans, samnites, kalabrians, etc., so I really don't understand your reasoning that to call the people of present day Italy "italians" is a bad thing which throws away their heritage or whatever.

Rome is still their capital, afterall.

And your last sentence is a crock....I don't mean any disrespect, but I can count 3 or 4 times that the Roman Empire would have never existed had it not been for the blunders of others, not anything Rome herself did. .